It was, indeed, Peter, who took the first steps to provoke uncertainty in the position with one of his regular attempts to derive an initiative from an early pawn sacrifice. But Duncan was not co-operating! He chose to hold on to the extra pawn, a doubled isolated QP which dominated the centre of the board and gave him a “White is better” from the engine for the next twenty moves. But then a couple of inaccurate moves saw the position become more equal until a miscalculated combination cost Duncan a whole rook. We hadn’t seen that point coming! Peter looked decidedly sheepish for the rest of the evening.

In fact, it had looked as though our first point might have been coming from James, who had obtained Gareth’s Queen for a rook, a minor piece and a pawn. It would be a question of how he could use his monarch’s superior firepower while defending his King against marauding rooks.

Reinhold and Mark seemed to have fairly equal positions, if anything Mark had a slight plus while Reinhold had the opposite. Meanwhile Aron and Oli both had games where White was maintaining the advantage of the first move as they settled in for the long haul.

The next blood to be drawn was shared as first our James manoeuvred his Queen and remaining knight into very threatening positions with Gareth’s King in danger of being caught in a mating net. And so it came to pass! But Aron was suffering from a cramped position where their James massed his pieces for a decisive attack. So 2-1 up with three unclear games still to finish.

The dodgiest of these appeared to be on board four, Reinhold against Chirag, where, although it was level on material, Chirag had all the play with threats against White’s King-side pawns. After Reinhold succeeded in getting the Queens off, things levelled out and he found himself with a more wide-ranging bishop on an open board than Chirag’s knight, plus a more active King. Chirag’s pawns turned out to be difficult to defend and once Reinhold obtained passed a and b pawns, resignation soon followed, giving us a 3-1 lead.

We needed just one draw from the last two games to be League Champions again. Mark’s knight was better placed to make progress against Brian’s bishop in a fairly static position. Mark had seen a way to open the King-side and infiltrate with his King but it turned out that both his King and knight were somewhat sidelined and unable to defend a key pawn which was on the same colour as Brian’s bishop. The writing was on the wall after that, so it was all down to Oli not to lose.

Oli’s game was materially level but his heavy pieces (the Queens and rooks were the last pieces standing by now) were better placed than John’s, while he patiently improved his position. One move, h2-h3, drew an ironic smile from John as he realised that the possibility of a back rank mate was gone. By now John, in addition to having a difficult position, was lower on time and when pawns started to be lost with no realistic counter-play, he resigned. Mark fought on without much chance of saving a draw and, soon after Oli won, he also resigned, making the final score 4-2.

It had been an excellent team effort to win the League for, in addition to the six who played here, Haroon and Nigel had made important contributions. By way of example, in the last two games against Bath B and Clifton A, Reinhold had lost last week but won the second game and, conversely, Mark had won a crucial game at Bath but lost last night. It was perhaps fitting that the only one to win in both these games was skipper Oli, who deservedly led the final charge to victory.

We shall have to see if we can deal with Clifton B in the last match of the season but that isn’t until 21st April and in the meantime we can bask in the certainty that we shall be adding the club’s name to the Division One Shield for the fifteenth time when we collect it at the League AGM.

Hearty congratulations to all the team!